The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1887-02-19
A Newspaper Bohemian
BY FANNIE MAY rRousDALE.
CHAPTER ".


&1gN ENDERsONVILLE-it it sets
y|InI the nerves tingling and thrill.
NnNE ling with new vigor just to
e9S&y think of it'll ying up there on
the mountain top, with its face so near
to Heaven that the benediction of won.
derful health and longevity Is bestowed
upon it.
Every one is familiar with that an.
cient joke about certain localities being
so healthful that,::there had to be a
man killed in order to start a grave.
yard. Stephanie felt sure she had dis.
covered the land Of its origin when she
reached Hendersonville. She did not
even smile when its citizens perpe-
trated it in her hearing, for it did not
seem any longer joke. These people
were somewhat brusque, perhaps, in
their manners they had not the gen.
tie courtesy and hospitality of the
South Carolinian, but they were
an honest and simple people. The i'm.
preston they made upon Stephanie
was that Of Indifference. in regard to
anybody's business but their own. To
that they were strictly attentive.
One other thing was noticeable; they
were not great readers, and they took
no lively interest in the happenings of
the outside world.
81 don't read anything myself"
Stephanie heard more than once during
her stay in their midst. "My wife,
she likes 10 read story papers. But
she takes the New York Weekly"
"Hadn't you rather patronize a
Southern story paper though ?" Steph.
anie insisted, with a vague remem-
brance of hearing that these mountain.
eefs had fought bravely for the Lost
Cause.
"Well, l dunno as had. 1 believe
in getting the most I cap for my
money; and my wife she thinks the
New York Weekly the best story pa
per tnat'S prluted.'
No need to appeal 10 his love for
tho South. This North Carolinian was
not sentimental. He had buried the
hatchet. No doubt he had made a
plucky soldier, but it was from sense
of duty. North Carolina is not land
of dreams..and romance.
Stephanie wrote from Henderson
vile her first letter for publication, and
the editor Of the South, when he hung
it on the hook, remarked to his brother
that this new agent was decided sue
cess, and promised some literary
ability.
Slephanie's letter was enthusiastic
ally appIauded in the Byrne house,
hold, and was transferred with pride
to the family scrap-b book, along with
her other literary efforts.
1t ran thus:
"It was late in the afternoon when
we pulled out from Spartanburg, a
South Carolina town, rather brisker
than one usually finds them, but slow
enough in all conscience, as South
Carolina towns only know how to be.
Hendersonville is not far away
fifty miles-cresting so drowsily the
fitiy-named Blue Ridge, but it seems
very far up and away, and unattaina-
BILE when one measures the climb, aud
the time it of necessity takes to COM
pass it.
There were few aboard-a North
Carolina mountaineer or two;a a woman
with baby, four band boxes and a
bird cage; a couple OF politicians pre-
parips TO bore the lie out of all within
reach, with their vociferous .contro-
versy; drummer with sample cases
neatly slowed away, cap over eyes
and newspaper under nose; and an old
lady, with placidly folded hands, and
eyes resting on the fitting landscape,
seeing yet unseeing.
81 am wearin' AVA, Jean,
To the land o. the leal,''
the dim, wistful eyes seemed to say,
and somehow down in my beartI half
envied her; the worry and fretting, a
thing of the past now, and before her
only that which the gentle old eyes
could foresee.
u